A Crime of Passion
by kuckookazoo
Summary: Molly finds herself thinking about when she murdered Bellatrix LeStrange during the war. The guilt and regret of ending a human life is released when she sees George's struggle and Ginny's new life and love. Short story.


**A Crime of Passion**

Molly jolted awake, sweating all over, panting for breath. Once she calmed down, she looked to her left and saw her husband, still sleeping peacefully. That nightmare. Again. She knew that what she did was right. She would do it again if it meant defending her little girl. But the face kept haunting her.

The unruly stringy deep black hair, the sunken eyes, the look of pure evil that the witch had given her before she froze and fell to the ground, seemingly in slow-motion. Even though she knew that Bellatrix LeStrange would never return, would never harm her family again, she could not help with the feeling of fear. Not fear for the disgustingly loyal Death Eater, but fear for herself.

She was supposed to be a down-to-earth comforting mother. But after the war, she was marked a murderer. The more she thought about it, the more it scared her. Hadn't this made her as bad as the young Tom Riddle? One night when she thought about it, she realized something that shook her to her core. This meant that her supposedly pure soul…. Was split. She had ended another life. A life of a woman that had grown up in the same school as her, that had sworn to a beautiful long marriage, in which she had loved- no. She had not loved.

Every time she found herself thinking about these things, and feeling even remotely bad about what she did, she stopped and reminded herself that this was a person that was about to steal the happiness away from Ginny's eyes. Her Ginny. Her little girl.

But she just couldn't help feeing a little sick. She thought about all of the people that went to Azkaban for murder. She was just like them, wasn't she? She would listen to them justifying that this was a crime of passion, and she always thought that was a foul excuse. That they should control that so-called "passion". It _was_ another human being, after all. And now, she was one of the pathetic people that killed and expected everything to be okay because they could justify it with feeling and provocation.

Did this make her a good mother or a petty criminal? She had lain back down and was looking at the ceiling, trying to pry her mind away from these thoughts, trying to fall asleep, and hoping that she would never see the face of her _victim_ * she shuddered * ever again, when the door creaked open.

George's head popped in and glanced at his mother. "Are you okay, mum? I thought I heard something…" She looked at George's face. It had a grayish tinge, like he had lost a bit of blood.

Of course it did. He had lost half of who he was. He had seen the person that he was so used to being around fall helplessly on his knees and give into Death. She had lost a son, she knew. But for the first time, she acknowledged in her mind that George had lost more. He lost his constant companion, his loyal brother, his one and only best friend that understood him inside and out. Something that no one else had or could accomplish. He would never get someone like that again. He lived with an emptiness that no one else in the Weasley family had felt. Like half of his body had been ripped apart from him, and no matter how hard he looked, it would never rejoin him. Fred had always been on his right, and now, when he turned his head, to say something witty or crack a half-hearted joke, there was always a grim space there, daring him to break down.

At this thought, Molly released her internal rambles about the act of protection that he had committed. One more death in the family would mean so much grief that it would be as if they all died as well. She was almost taken over by the obvious feeling of forgiveness. For herself. Finally.

"Yes. I think I'm fine. You go on and sleep." She smiled to herself and made her way over to the window. She looked outside at the moon and then down at her wondrous garden. She saw Harry and Ginny sitting in the dirt, knees up to their chests. They were talking to each other, occasionally staring at each other fondly. As they leaned in for the first kiss after the "goodbye-just-in-case" kiss at the war, Molly closed her eyes and took the moment in.

She had a feeling that she would not get the nightmare anymore.


End file.
